A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST

Seth MacFarlane found fame in television, and in writing, directing, and starring in A Million Ways to Die in the West his tv roots show through a bit too much.  While the film's R rating gives him more opportunities for cursing and gross-out gags, it still feels like an extended episode.

Albert (Seth MacFarlane) lives in the small town of Old Stump, Arizona 1882 -- and he couldn't be in a worse place or time.  While everyone around him is violent and too ready for a gunfight, Albert is both intelligent and cowardly, preferring to negotiate and joke instead of kill.  As he puts it, "I'm not the hero; I'm the guy in the crowd making fun of the hero's shirt."  He's a sheep farmer -- and a bad one -- and his girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried) just left him for rich moustache merchant Foy (Neil Patrick Harris).  Albert's only friends are nervous virgin Edward (Giovanno Ribisi) and his busy prostitute fiancee Ruth (Sarah Silverman), who's screwing virtually everyone but Edward.  Albert gets some help from Anna (Charlize Theron), a beauty and killer shot who agrees to help Albert win Louise back.

But there's violence on the way.  Albert foolishly challenges Foy to a duel, leading to several training montages as Anna teaches Albert how to shoot.  Also, violent and abusive gunslinger-thief Clinch (Liam Neeson) is working his way to Old Stump -- where he sent his wife, Anna, earlier.  What happens next is, well, what you'd expect from both the romance and action angles.

There are some funny moments and performances through A Million Ways to Die in the West -- but there's far too much of MacFarlane's usual jokes.  There are tons of gross-out gags (from urinating animals to Ruth's messy profession), celebrity cameos (the best of which was revealed in several trailers), casual racism and sexism, and musical numbers scattered through the movie.  There aren't any real surprises in the movie, and the laughs are inconsistent.  MacFarlane is decent but not outstanding in the lead, Neil Patrick Harris is quite good as the pompous villain; and while Charlize Theron does well as a stronger woman, Amanda Seyfried is there to look pretty and be disliked.  And the Edward-Ruth storyline could be put anywhere in the movie, or removed entirely, without affecting the main story.

A Million Ways to Die in the West is full of curses, violence, and scatalogical humor.  It could have used more laughs -- and more than its R rating to differentiate it from MacFarlane's television cartoons.

Overall grade: C
Reviewed by James Lynch

LOVELACE dvd

Linda Lovelace went from being America's biggest adult film star to an outspoken critic of that same industry.  The biopic Lovelace reflects this dichotomy, essentially looking at the title character's life in two halves -- with some factual changes made along the way.

Lovelace begins in 1970 with Linda Lovelace (Amanda Seyfried) as a 20-year-old good girl stuck in a Florida home with an oppressively religious mother (Sharon Stone) and laid-back father (Robert Patrick).  Linda is swept off her feet by Chuck Traylor (Peter Sarsgaard), who's able to charm her parents while introducing Linda to a world of sex and drugs.  In no time at all, they're married.

But it doesn't take long for Chuck to get in financial troubles, and that's when he decides to get Linda into the porn industry to make some money.  He shows a movie with her, er, talent to producers Anthony Romano (Peter Noth) and Butchie Peraino (Bobby Cannavale), along with writer/director Gerry Damaino (Hank Azaria), and they decide to make her the star of their movie.  The resulting skin movie, Deep Throat, becomes a cultural phenomenon and one of the highest-grossing adult films ever, transforming Linda Lovelace becomes a household name.  But there's a dark side to her success...

Again, Lovelace is split almost directly down the middle.  For the first half of the movie, Linda's life seems pretty good: She's a celebrity, meeting people like Hugh Hefner (James Franco), being talked about by Johnny Carson, and giving interviews about her stardom.  But at the middle point, the movie looks at her life again -- this time with Chuck Traynor as a sadistic, selfish, controlling bastard who will rape, beat, or pimp out his wife based on what's convenient for him.  We get to see Linda suffer, struggle, and ultimately grow out of her marriage.

So how does Lovelace work?  It's a mix of positive and negative.  The only two actors with real screen time are Seyfried and Sarsgaard, and they do very well with their roles.  Seyfried captures both the early innocence of Linda (during her audition for the adult film she recites "Mary had a little lamb") and the fear and ultimate maturity from her abuse.  Sarsggard has an easier time of making Chuck into a monster, with a casual expectation that he is to be obeyed or else.  My biggest issue with the movie is its liberties with Linda Lovelace's life.  While the opening describes this as "based on a true story," the story here cherry-picks parts of Lovelace's life for its narrative.  For example, in real life Linda Lovelace became a crusader against the porn industry, yet here she only speaks out against domestic abuse; the contradictions and falsehoods in her public statements are also skipped entirely.

Lovelace isn't so much a movie about one of the most famous porn stars of all time as it is a docudrama about an abusive husband and the wife who overcame him.  Even with a terrific cast, that's a little disappointing given what this could have been.  (The only dvd extra is a big one, as almost every star and both directors talk about the movie.)

Overall grade: C+
Reviewed by James Lynch

CHLOE

Chloe, a sexually tense drama, explores issues of fidelity, connection, and desire. Director Atom Egoyan uses the movie to explore what lurks beneath the surface of society, and even of people's intentions, and how it can rise and consume.

Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore) should have a good life. She has a rewarding job as a gynecologist, her good-looking husband David (Liam Neeson) is a professor of classical music and opera, and her teenage son Michael (Max Thieriot) is doing better in therapy after some unspecified incident. Catherine has a beautiful house, lots of friends -- and suspicions. Catherine notices David flirting with almost every woman he meets ("I'm just being friendly," he answers), and his missing a plane home for his birthday increases Catherine's suspicions, especially after finding a message from a young female student to him the next day.

What's a concerned wife to do? Catherine comes up with an unusual plan. She hires Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), a streetwalker Catherine sees working by her office, to flirt with David, see if and how he responds, and then report what happens back to Catherine. Chloe is fine with this, treating it like just another business proposition. Things quickly get complicated, as Chloe goes way beyond what Catherine asked her to do with David, Chloe becomes more involved in Catherine's life, and Catherine keeps hiring Chloe even after learning what she said she wanted to find out.

While sexuality is a very large part of Chloe, this movie is more about the passions, or lack thereof, of the various characters. Moore makes Catherine a conflicted and suspicious woman, someone out to discover the truth but not willing to stop once she finds it. As for Sevigny, her character is, first and foremost, manipulative. She rattles off very explicit details of her tryst with a bored voice, yet she keeps drawing Catherine along into her world. Sevigny delivers a nice performance, keeping her character from becoming either a selfish gold digger or a streetwalker with a heart of gold. Liam Neeson has the least to do, spending most of the movie as a cipher: Is he cheating, or is Catherine imagining it as she wades through a world filled with beautiful young women.

The plot of Chloe goes overboard towards the end, as tensions and discoveries get blown up into psycho-obsessiveness, but until then this is an intriguing movie. Chloe uses the possibility of cheating as the opening for what people lack, want, and wind up needing from their partners and for themselves. This movie is very explicit -- both verbally and visually -- but at its core Chloe is about people discovering what they can't even admit they're looking for.

(Dvd extras are standard: interviews with the cast, plus movie commentaries.)

Overall grade: B
Reviewed by James Lynch

JENNIFER'S BODY

If you thought Megan Fox became famous for her looks instead of her talent, you'll still think that after seeing her in Jennifer's Body. This high school horror movie is an unfortunate mash-up of cliches.

The small town of Devil's Kettle has an unusual pair of best friends: Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) and Anita "Needy" Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried). Jennifer is a promiscuous cheerleader, popular with all the boys and quick to make a sarcastic comment. Anita is quiet, shy, and ready to do what Jennifer wants. Even Anita's boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons) is jealous of how much Anita follows Jennifer around.

Jennifer drags Anita to a dive bar to see the band Bad Shoulder. When the bar burns down, Jennifer and Anita escape -- but then Jennifer goes off with the band in their band. Later that night Anita is home alone when she finds Jennifer there -- bloodied, bruised, and barfing up some sort of black, prickly ichor. The next day in school Jennifer looks and acts fine; in fact, she seems unaffected by the numerous students and townies who died in the fire.

Things then get much worse. Jennifer is killing and eating male students. Anita knows this, between inconvenient psychic flashes during the crime and visions/hallucinations of Jennifer covered in blood and gore. But can Anita stop her best friend, considering how strong Jennifer seems to be?

Anyone hoping for a horror-movie commentary on high school with Jennifer's Body will be disappointed. Instead of going for anything thoughtful or original, the movie settles for prurient ways of showing Megan Fox and horror cliches, from the approaching-from-behind camera angles to the slow motion. So much slow motion... Writer Diablo Cody does a good job capturing how high school students talk, but apart from the occasional sarcastic one-liner there's no dialogue of note. Fox and Seyfried turn in one-note performances as the literal femme fatale and the scared wallflower; the rest of the cast is unimpressive, and the film fails to make any use of terrific actors J.K. Simmons and Amy Sedaris, giving them little more than cameos.

If you're a Megan Fox fan, pick up one of the numerous magazines with pictorials of her instead of sitting through Jennifer's Body. This movie is neither scary nor funny. It's just disappointing.

Overall grade: D-

Reviewed by James Lynch